Cleveland Promotion Board Preparation
If you’re preparing for a Sergeant, Inspector or Chief Inspector board at Cleveland, your panel already knows your force’s inspection picture. Here’s what that means for you, and how State6 builds it into your preparation.
PEEL report
10 April 2025
2023-25 PEEL inspection
Grades
8 areas
Causes of concern
None
in the latest PEEL report
Cleveland HMICFRS snapshot
What the inspectors found
Cleveland received good grades for police powers, preventing crime, managing offenders, and workforce in the 2023-25 PEEL inspection, with adequate grades for responding to the public and leadership.
PEEL grades
- Investigating crimeRequires improvement
- Protecting vulnerableRequires improvement
- LeadershipAdequate
- Responding to publicAdequate
- WorkforceGood
- Police powersGood
- Preventing crimeGood
- Managing offendersGood
Areas for improvement
- Cleveland Police should improve the way it flags vulnerable people on its incident logs
- Cleveland Police needs to attend calls for service in line with its published attendance times
- Cleveland Police doesn't consistently achieve appropriate outcomes for victims
- Cleveland Police needs to make sure it completes a victim needs assessment when appropriate
- Cleveland Police should continue to improve the strategic and tactical oversight of its safeguarding strategy and tactical plans
- Cleveland Police should improve its initial response to reports of domestic abuse
Show the other 2 areas for improvementHide the extra areas for improvement
- Cleveland Police's operating model should allow it to respond effectively and consistently to priorities, and to assess current and future demand
- Cleveland Police has invested in some new digital processes to help reduce sources of internal demand, but several processes are still inefficient
8 areas were identified in the full inspection. Inside State6, each is mapped to the CVF competencies it affects, so you know exactly what to evidence.
Source: Cleveland’s inspection reports on the HMICFRS website.
In their own words
What Cleveland says it is focused on
The inspection picture above is what HMICFRS found. These are the priorities Cleveland and its commissioner have set for themselves, and the people on your panel work to them every day.
Police and Crime Plan 2024 to 2029
Set by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Cleveland. Stated aim: Safe, strong and confident communities.
- Reduce crime, antisocial behaviour and harm
- Deliver more visible and effective policing
- Improve safety for women and girls
- Ensure the right support for victims and vulnerable people
- Build trust and confidence in policing and the criminal justice system
- Tackle offending and reoffending
Use these to choose which of your examples to tell, not as phrases to recite. An answer about a team problem lands harder when the panel can see it serves something the force has already said matters.
Priority names are the publishers’ own headings. The summaries are ours. Checked against the published documents on 21 September 2026.
What this means for your board
Cleveland is graded Requires improvement for investigating crime and protecting vulnerable people. Its Police and Crime Plan 2024 to 2029 leads with the priority “Reduce crime, antisocial behaviour and harm”. Your panel knows both without looking it up, and an example that speaks to either is one they will recognise.
A promotion board at Cleveland isn’t only assessing whether you can lead a team. It’s assessing whether you understand the force you’re asking to lead in, and where your leadership fits its priorities. Officers who connect their examples to what Cleveland is actually focused on stand out. Officers who stay inside their own team don’t.
You don’t do this by quoting the inspection report. You do it by letting your force’s priorities shape the decisions in your answers. If you want the full method, read our guide on what HMICFRS grades mean for your promotion board, or compare every force’s PEEL grades side by side.
How State6 prepares you for Cleveland
You don’t have to research any of this yourself. Cleveland’s real HMICFRS picture is built into State6. The Question Bank shapes practice questions around it, and every AI Board Review weaves your force’s context into the feedback on your answers. You’re preparing for the board you’ll actually sit, at the force you’ll actually sit it in.
You can also sit a full voiced AI mock board calibrated to Cleveland’s inspection picture, answering out loud while the panel listens, probes and scores you against the CVF 2024.
Calibrated to your target rank, too. See what panels look for at sergeant, inspector and chief inspector level.
Prefer to start free? Our free promotion board question bank gives you real questions for every CVF area at sergeant, inspector and chief inspector level, free to download as you prepare for your Cleveland board.
Prepare for your Cleveland board
Practice questions, AI board reviews and your force’s inspection picture, all in one place. Try it free first: one AI Board Review, ten practice questions, fifteen coaching rounds and one spoken mock board question, no card needed.
State6 is an independent preparation platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Cleveland, the College of Policing or HMICFRS. Inspection findings are summarised from the publicly available HMICFRS PEEL reports.
HMICFRS inspection data: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.